


The Weight Of Winter

by BaggerHeda



Series: WayHaught Park Rangers [2]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Park Rangers AU, Rescue, Winter, blizzard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28460673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaggerHeda/pseuds/BaggerHeda
Summary: The return of the WayHaught Park Rangers AU!The rangers find themselves in a precarious situation, and Waverly and Nicole have to find a way to get themselves out of the cold.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Series: WayHaught Park Rangers [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2084682
Comments: 20
Kudos: 143





	The Weight Of Winter

Waverly’s hand trembled as she brought the radio to her mouth. _Please, give me a good signal,_ she prayed to any gods who would care to listen. “Dispatch, this is ranger four five nine, come in, over.” After five seconds and no response, she keyed up the mic again, her spiking adrenaline causing her to halfway shout. “Dispatch! This is Waverly Earp, four-five-nine! I am in need of assistance!”

 _That_ got some attention. There was a burst of static-y feedback, and Waverly quickly adjusted the squelch. Then the dispatcher was on the line. “Four five nine, go ahead with your status, over.”

“Dispatch, requesting medical evacuation for Ranger Dayton. He appears to have a fractured ulna and radius and a possible dislocated elbow. I’ve immobilized the injury and patient is stable for now, but we’re in some trouble here.” Waverly took a deep breath. “An avalanche took our snowmobile, and most of our equipment.”

“Copy that,” replied the dispatcher. Waverly could hear the rapid rattle of the keyboard, info being typed in. “What is your current location?”

“We are on the Westside Trail, pretty much right below the High Hat,” said Waverly, referring to one of the distinctive rock formations on the ridge above them. “We were approaching station A-1088, I estimate we are maybe four miles from there. Over.”

The destination, A-1088, was one of several hydrological observation stations in the backcountry, used to measure snowpack and assorted meteorological data. The hydro stations were not automated; a ranger had to visit every two to three weeks to collect the data, which involved connecting a chunky hand unit for the upload. Waverly had volunteered to accompany her friend Aggie on the trip. While park protocols didn’t require two rangers for these types of excursions, it was allowed if the rangers wanted it and everyone had the hours to spare. Waverly figured the safety-in-numbers strategy just paid off big-time, because Aggie would be in infinitely worse shape if he were alone out here, injured.

“Copy,” said the dispatcher, still clacking away on the keyboard. “And you said your snowmobile has been carried away in an avalanche?”

“That is correct,” said Waverly, clenching her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. _Fudgenuggets,_ she thought. The entire point of collecting data today had been to beat a storm that was predicted to come in by sometime tomorrow. But temps were already dropping, and would only get worse as the day wore on. _We’re going to need to find some shelter, soon._

“Can you reach the vehicle from your location? Could it possibly still run?” the dispatcher asked.

“Negative,” replied Waverly. “Nothing is visible from the trail. I can’t tell how far down it traveled or how deep it’s buried.” She let out a choppy, weak laugh. “Might have to wait for spring thaw before we can do any recovery.”

“Stand by.” The dispatcher returned in less than a minute. “Four five nine, I have rangers en route to your position, ETA approximately two and a half hours. We’ll send more but,” the dispatcher paused, “it will take a while to get all the way up there, so you’ll need to hang tight for a bit.”

“Okay, copy,” said Waverly. “Be advised that we will be seeking shelter, we’re far too exposed at our current location. Going to try to make it to Hut #3 on foot, over.”

“Will relay the information to the rescue group, they’ll get there as soon as they can safely. Maintain this channel for additional information, over.”

“Copy that, out,” said Waverly. She waited a moment longer, then holstered her radio and trudged down the hillock she’d climbed hoping for an improved signal, back to where Aggie was settled in a small open area between snow-laden trees.

He watched her approach. “What did you get?” he asked, as soon as she was near.

“They’re sending people,” Waverly replied, “but it will take them a couple of hours to get here.” She gestured at the crude splint on his arm, broken-off sticks wrapped with her scarf, the best she could do with no other materials. “How does it feel?”

“Hurts like a gold-plated sumbitch,” Aggie said with a rueful grimace, “but I bet you could have guessed that.” He shifted uncomfortably on the log where he was seated, clutching his injured arm to his chest.

Waverly stooped over him, and touched his fingertips. “I want to check for color and swelling, but I don’t want to take your glove off until we get to someplace more sheltered. Can you move your hand at all?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Hurts, though.”

“Can you squeeze my fingers a little?” Waverly nodded when she felt a slight pressure, and heard the small pained grunt from Aggie. “Okay, that’s enough, you’re good. Do you think you can walk? We need to get off this mountainside, and it’s not too far to get to one of the old warming huts for the cross-country skiers. I think we should go there.”

“Pretty sure I can walk.” He laughed. “What were you going to do if it was my leg that was broken?”

“Um. Make a travois and drag you to someplace safe?” Waverly shrugged. “I mean it’s not out of the question yet. Don’t fall over and make me carry you.” She offered her hand and helped haul him to his feet, looking past him to the broken, jumbled field of snow that had been the avalanche’s path.

  


* * *

  


_It had all happened so fast._

_They were two-up on the big snowmobile and traversing one of the cirques, an amphitheatre-like bowl carved into the mountain by ancient glaciers, along the way to the hydro station. It always made Waverly nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers. The cirque was a natural site for snowslides, and the weather wasn’t in their favor. A deep chill last week followed by a fresh deposit of powder, and temps hovering well below freezing, meant that a few feet of fluffy soft snow lay on top of a layer of solid ice, conditions full of deadly potential._

_The noise of the engine, of course, meant that she missed any telltale “whoomp” sound that an avalanche sometimes makes just as it begins. Waverly only saw the unfolding disaster as the mountain started to move, a disorienting trick of the eye before her brain caught up and recognized the slide. Raw panic jolted through her system. “Go! Go! Avalanche!” she yelled at the top of her voice, flailing at Aggie’s arm as the snow picked up speed and came hurtling toward them. She didn’t know if he could hear her words, but he certainly understood her meaning, gunning the throttle for all it was worth. The sled leapt forward, racing for safety._

_They almost made it._

_The edge of the slide had caught the little trailer they were towing, twisting them sideways before rolling the snowmobile. Waverly was somehow thrown clear, and she remembered watching in horrified confusion as the machine landed on Aggie and bounced away. Then the rumbling whoosh was below them in the canyon, the snow was creaking and settling around them, and Waverly was scrambling up, brushing ice out of her face and parka. Then she spotted Aggie lying half-buried in the snow, his arm at an unnatural angle._

  


* * *

  


“Not much farther now,” said Waverly, panting heavily as she floundered ahead. It was tough going, breaking a trail through so much powder, but she picked her way carefully and avoided the deep drifts as best she could. The snow was up past her calves in most places, and she would occasionally posthole into waist-deep snow, and have to fight her way out of it. It took a shit ton of energy and Waverly could feel exhaustion dogging her steps, but at least her bib and parka were keeping her fairly dry. Aggie followed in the path she created, keeping up without complaint. Every time she turned to check on him, as she frequently did, she’d see his face lined with sharp discomfort, and she figured each step he took was a painful jolt to his arm, but he always responded with a thumbs-up and a cheerful ‘still going!’ when she inquired how he was doing. _Rangers can be made of tough stuff,_ she thought.

The blanket of white obscured most of her ordinary landmarks, but Waverly was able to navigate by the shape of the ridgelines above them, thankful for her good fortune of knowing this section of the backcountry as well as she did. Travelling by snowmobile meant sticking to trails that mostly crossed open alpine meadows and flat plateaus, or occasionally carved across canyons instead of up and down them, so that was the terrain they now walked. They were out of the heaviest timber and brush, at least. Waverly was happy that they were nominally safer from getting a treeful of snow dumped on them unexpectedly.

But here, out in the open and below the ridges, the heat-stealing wind pierced that much more sharply, and Waverly knew she had to bring them someplace they could warm up, without delay. Nothing to do but keep trudging toward safety. She almost wept when the stone walls of the tiny outbuilding hove into view, feeling like their ordeal must be coming to an end soon.

  


* * *

  


The warming hut had four thick walls, a solid roof and good doors and windows, and little else.

Waverly radioed in to let dispatch know they had reached the shelter, then quickly assessed the situation. The stockpile of wood was desperately low but she knew they needed heat; she’d burn it all if she had to. She settled Aggie on a small platform in the corner, obviously a sleeping area but missing any sleeping bags, and checked out the rest of the room. A table, two chairs. A rough-hewn shelf that held a couple of old blankets, woolen Army surplus by the looks of them. A tiny cupboard that held – nothing. Waverly sighed.

She took one of the blankets down and draped it around Aggie’s shoulders. “Here,” she said. “I’m going to start a fire, then check your arm again while we’re waiting for the rescue team to arrive.” Aggie nodded his thanks and tucked the blanket around himself the best he could with one good arm. He was shivering, but not violently.

The fireplace was empty, so Waverly carried in the driest wood she could find in the woodpile, then set about building a proper fire. First, she broke apart some of the smaller sticks and twigs into kindling, arranging them into a rough pyramid shape in the center of the hearth. Then she took her knife and shaved off bits of soft wood for tinder from a larger stick, the curlicues dropping in a neat little pile. These she placed on a flat piece of bark, a loose jumble. She dug a ferro rod out of one of the many exterior zipped pockets of her jacket, glad that she’d had the foresight to add it as part of her emergency ‘always-carry’ kit. Using the back of her knife, she struck sparks from it a couple of times, and the shavings caught. “Ah, there we go,” she murmured. She slid the bark into her stack of kindling and fire bloomed easily into her little pyramid as well, and now Waverly started feeding in increasingly larger pieces of wood, until the fire was well-established and starting to warm the small room.

She stood and turned back to face Aggie, who was looking on approvingly. “Nice job, that,” he said, nodding at the fireplace.

“Thanks,” Waverly replied. “Now, we wait. Let me know when you feel warm enough to take off your glove and let me check your arm.”

“Might be a little bit,” said Aggie. Waverly nodded in understanding, as she took down the other blanket and wrapped herself up. She pulled one of the chairs closer to the fire, and finally sat down.

They remained like that, mostly silent and motionless while they waited, because there wasn’t any small talk needed. Aggie surely kept still in an effort to avoid as much pain as possible, and Waverly … she just felt tired. Beyond tired, actually, the kind of exhaustion born of deep physical labor combined with extended worry about how they were going to get out this mess. She roused herself once to go outside and fetch some more wood, the few moments in the chill air enough to set her to shivering once more, and she monitored Aggie’s injury the best she could, though that mostly meant checking against undue swelling and tightening with the makeshift splint, and carefully wiggling and extending each finger to see that the blood supply and nervous system were not additionally impaired. There wasn’t much else she could do. She mostly sat and watched, constantly checking both her friend and the fire for any signs of trouble.

  


* * *

  


They caught the sound of an approaching snowmobile at the same time, both of them lifting their heads and Waverly jumping to her feet. She knew better than to run outside to see who was arriving; that would just let extra cold into the hut. Instead, she went to the window and peered out. The thick glass, rippled with age and carrying layers of dirt and frost, didn’t give her a clear view. She could only see two figures, bundled up in the olive green of the ranger winter uniform, moving around out there, and she wondered who had been sent to their aid.

Moments later, the door swung open, and in walked her girlfriend, stooping slightly as she came through the low doorframe. “Hey,” said Nicole cheerfully, like she was just dropping by on a whim. “Heard you guys had a bit of trouble.” Waverly burst into a huge smile and rushed into a quick embrace, giving her a peck on the cheek. They’d been dating for a few months and were considered the unofficial ‘cutest couple’ of the park.

Another woman followed closely behind Nicole, shutting the door firmly against the cold. “Okay, give me the details,” she said. “Dispatch filled us in on what they could, but it wasn’t much.”

“You know Marie, right?” Nicole added, and Waverly nodded her assent. She’d worked with the woman before on various visitor center assignments, and knew her to be a competent, no-nonsense ranger. Nicole took a step toward the corner, and greeted Aggie. “I don’t think we’ve officially met. Nicole Haught.”

“Aggie Dayton,” he replied, glancing ruefully down at his arm as if to say _sorry I can’t shake your hand._ “Yeah, we caught a little bad luck for sure.”

Waverly jumped into the story. “ _Super_ bad timing. An avalanche came down right as we were crossing the slope’s face. We tried to outrun it but couldn’t, and then the snowmobile got carried right down the chute and it’s a miracle we didn’t get stuck down there as well. Anyway,” she laughed with dark humor, “that’s how he got such an impressively broken arm, when the machine went flying and landed on top of him. I think.”

“Can’t say as I remember the exact details,” said Aggie with a wan chuckle.

Marie sat next to Aggie to make her own examination, while Waverly went on with the details of the field diagnosis and treatment. Closed fracture, a both-bone break in the lower arm with a dislocation of the elbow. She’d reduced the fracture, straightening out the bend and apologizing profusely while Aggie hollered out his pain, and applied a splint made out of branches and her scarf, torn into strips.

“Sorry. I’ll get you a new scarf,” Aggie said.

“Pfft. You _totally_ don’t need to do that,” answered Waverly. “I have a ton of scarves.” She went on to describe how she had made a sling to immobilize the injury, this time with Aggie’s neck scarf, and once stabilized, they made the walk to get out of the cold and wind on the exposed side of the mountain. “We’d only been here maybe forty-five minutes when you guys showed up? Not long, really.”

“You did a good job,” said Marie. “I mean, we have a first aid kit on the sled with one of those flex splints, but it wouldn’t be any better than this. I don’t see any reason to replace it. Unless anything is jabbing or digging in here. Aggie?”

“No diggin’, no jabbin’,” replied Aggie.

“I’m not seeing any signs of compartment syndrome, yet,” Marie went on, “and the swelling isn’t out of the ordinary, but still. I’d like to get you out of here and to a medical facility as soon as we can manage it. Guys?”

“Well, we have four people and exactly one snowmobile,” said Nicole, “so it’s not like we have a ton of options.”

“I wish we had the stretcher rig, but oh well,” said Marie. “It’s gonna have to be two-up. Risky, and if you fall off you could exacerbate the injury, but I don’t see another way.” She turned toward Aggie. “You think you can handle it?”

“Yeah,” said Aggie. “Don’t go racing through any corners, though.”

“Maybe I can rig up some kind of rope harness, give you someplace to hang on,” said Nicole. “That should help. Should I be the driver?”

“I should drive. I know the way better than you do,” said Waverly. The trails mostly had piss-poor markings in her opinion, so she’d made it a point to thoroughly learn her way around a couple of winters ago.

“Sorry, gonna overrule you both,” said Marie. “I’m the only one here with a current EMT certification so I’m going to pull the medical reasons card.”

“It’ll be full dark before you get down to HQ,” mused Nicole. “And the trails aren’t groomed yet. Be careful you don’t get lost. Or knocked off by a low-hanging branch.”

“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Waverly. “Here’s what you do! Instead of going straight to headquarters, have the ambulance meet you at Norris Notch. As long as the road’s still clear.” She glanced between Marie and Nicole, who both nodded that yes, the road had been plowed. “Yeah. That should work better. And you can get there from here pretty quick. Lake’s frozen so you can cut straight across.”

“There’s the winner,” said Aggie. “I’m down if everyone else is.”

  


* * *

  


Once the plan was decided, the rangers quickly swung into action. Nicole found a length of rope stashed in the snowmobile’s luggage compartment, and knotted it into a workable harness, crisscrossing over Marie’s torso like bandoliers, giving Aggie a handle on the back to hold on to with his good hand. Meanwhile, inside the cabin, Waverly insisted on unfolding a silver emergency blanket and wrapping it around Aggie under his heavy coat, saying he needed to keep as much warmth as possible. The process took a while, because she had to carefully think out every move before arranging the thin mylar, trying hard not to bump his splinted arm. Finally satisfied, Waverly got him zipped up and thoroughly bundled, bringing him outside to the parked snowmobile.

“This is going to drive me insane,” Aggie said, the blanket crinkling noisily with every step.

Waverly laughed. “You won’t hear it over the engine.” She patted him on his uninjured arm, and smiled.

There was no time to waste and the sun was already starting to sink low, so as soon as Aggie was seated on the back of the machine and indicated he was ready, Marie gave a sharp nod. “Okay, here we go. See you guys soon,” she said to Waverly and Nicole. She revved the throttle and took off at a decent clip, and quickly disappeared down the valley and into the dark forest, the noisy buzz of the engine dwindling away.

As silence settled over them again, Waverly sighed and turned to look at Nicole. “Hell of a day,” she murmured, her mouth twisted into a wry half-grin.

“That’s for damn sure,” said Nicole. “C’mon, let’s go in.” Waverly scampered ahead to open the door for Nicole, then followed her into the cabin.

The fire was still going, mostly coals now; Waverly stirred it back to life and added some small pieces of wood, before sitting down. She felt drained, the ebb tide of the day’s events. “So. Now what?” she asked, her eyes following as Nicole prowled around the room in the fading light. “Do we need to call in again?”

“No,” said Nicole. She opened the small cupboard, frowning just like Waverly had done earlier when she discovered it was empty. “I was on the horn with the safety team, they said if it’s not an emergency situation they think it’s better to let us stick it out here overnight, and they’ll come get us in the morning.” She closed the cupboard with an air of disgust, and turned around to face Waverly. “Wow, there is really _nothing_ here.”

“Yup,” said Waverly. She gestured vaguely at the entirety of the cabin, the extreme lack of luxury of the accommodations. “A whole bunch of nothing. Come sit with me a minute, yeah?” She dropped her head in her hands. She felt bone-tired, and unsure if she was on the verge of tears because of her extreme fatigue, or because of the simmering frustration and futile rage at the chain of events caused by one goddamned ordinary avalanche. It all seemed so _stupid._ Stupid and unnecessarily heavy. The weight of winter, crashing down and wrecking _everything._ And now she was here and there was nothing here and most of her gear was probably lost forever and her whole body ached and she’d gotten Nicole stuck here too in the middle of all the shitty suckage and she couldn’t even do anything special for her girlfriend who had come to her rescue like a knight in shining armor because nothing had gone right and she was worried sick about Aggie and Marie and would they make it out safely and now what were they going to do about the fire because they were low on firewood and –

“Hey,” said Nicole, pulling up the other chair right in front of Waverly, sitting down and leaning closer. “It’s okay, baby. I know it’s a lot.” She brushed a kiss over Waverly’s forehead, sweet and gentle, then started stroking her agile fingers through her hair. “What’s going on? Your mind’s going a million miles an hour, isn’t it?”

“Wood,” Waverly blurted out her last thought, finally looking up again. “We need to get more firewood if we’re staying here.”

“Okay. How much is outside?” Nicole asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Barely enough to get through tonight,” answered Waverly. “And I know we need the fire but I don’t want to leave the pile empty because, you know, what if there’s _another_ emergency?”

Nicole laughed, the indulgent chuckle she had sometimes, the one Waverly associated with _hang on, I’m about to make everything easier for you_ and Waverly couldn’t help the tiny grain of relief that bloomed in her chest. “How ‘bout this,” Nicole said. “We’ll be a little bit scrimpy with it tonight, so we don’t run out. Okay?” She reached forward and captured both of Waverly’s hands between her own. “And then, later, we’ll come back here and rebuild the woodpile. We can make it a special project. Okay?”

Waverly’s responding laugh was weak and watery, but she was at least starting to feel a little better. “Sorry,” she said. “I got a little freaked out, how quickly the day went from normal to complete shit. I’ve been so scared for Aggie.”

“Yeah. I bet,” said Nicole gently, rubbing her thumbs over the back of Waverly’s hands. “I bet you were scared. He’ll be in good hands now.” Her voice brightened. “Let’s maybe eat a little something, and tuck in for the night? Okay, baby? Rest and a new day will make everything better, I promise.”

“I suppose,” agreed Waverly half-heartedly. “I lost my good batch of homemade energy snacks, and I’m still pissed off about it. What have you got?”

  


* * *

  


As luck would have it, Nicole had a couple of those high-calorie emergency ration bars in her pack, so that was their dinner. _Always thought it might come in handy if we got stuck in a snowbank,_ she said with a laugh, _didn’t know it’d be kind of literal._ When they’d finished picking at the crumbs of their meager meal, Nicole arranged the available bedding as well as she could. The two wool blankets weren’t bad but were not entirely sufficient against the cold, so she broke out the last mylar blanket, which would reflect at least some of their body heat back to them, and they crawled into their makeshift bed fully clothed.

Waverly snuggled down with the blankets up past her ears, and snuggled in to Nicole. “You know. If I’d known I’d be playing house with you in the middle of nowhere tonight,” she said, “I _might_ have been a tiny bit less grumpy.”

“I’d be happier if I’d somehow thought to bring your favorite flannel jammies,” Nicole retorted, a playful note in her voice. “But I think this will be alright. Are you cold?”

“Kinda okay for now,” said Waverly. She glanced over at the fireplace, still burning with low flames, the coals well-banked so they would stay warm for hours. It was the only illumination in the cabin, flickering dim and ghostly against the rough-hewn beams of the low ceiling. Sturdy construction almost a century old, Waverly thought. _The stories these walls could tell. I wonder how many people have found shelter here in all that time._ As tired as her body was, her brain wouldn’t settle, the details of the day running in an endless loop. The flying white of the hillside dropping toward her, the grim walk through the biting cold. She figured she’d try to get Nicole talking, that might help her calm down and sleep. “Tell me about your drive up here, did you see where the avalanche was?” Maybe Nicole and Marie had spotted where the lost snowmobile had ended up, from the other side of the trail.

She felt more than saw Nicole shake her head. “Didn’t come up that way. We were down in North Meadows when the call came over the radio.”

“Huh,” said Waverly. That meant Nicole had probably come through the less-travelled Wheaton Pass to reach the hut, but more to the point, they had started from somewhere that was way out of her usual patrol area. “What were you doing down there?” The section of the park known as the Meadows was at a much lower elevation than here, but still blanketed in snow at this time of the year. In summer months it was filled with hikers; in winter, it was the playground of skiers and snowshoers.

“Animal encounter,” said Nicole with a smothered laugh. “I swear, I was so furious. Get this. These people had stopped for lunch and some deer wandered by, and they fed them part of their sandwiches.” Nicole groaned. “Then they packed up and took off again, and of course the deer followed. Looking for more food.”

Waverly sighed, a ranger’s endless frustration with visitors’ determination to ignore every copiously posted warning. “Then what happened?”

“Apparently the deer were persistent enough that the people started to feel _threatened,_ ” said Nicole. Waverly couldn’t help but laugh at that as well, stifling a giggle with a fist to her mouth. Tourists could be surprised by the mule deer roaming the park, long since habituated to the presence of humans and quite a bit larger than the white-tailed deer in the east. A full-grown adult could easily look you in the eye, and some people found a stare-down with an animal that large to be unnerving. Deer weren’t pushy, usually, not like the raccoons or marmots, but it sounded like these people had done everything wrong. Nicole went on. “So they ended up calling 9-1-1, if you can believe _that,_ and the county relayed it to HQ, and HQ sent us. Of course by the time we got there, the deer were long gone, the snowmobile scared ‘em away.”

“So what did you do then?” Waverly pressed her face to the smooth nylon of Nicole’s jacket. She felt her limbs growing heavy, and the curious feeling of how the darkness swirled all around her as she was wrapped in the voice and the safety of her lover.

“Well, I wanted to slap ‘em silly,” said Nicole softly, a thread of amusement contradicting her words, “but, y’know, slapping the visitors is not allowed. Marie came up with a really good idea instead of fining them, though.”

If Nicole told the story of Marie’s really good idea in lieu of a fine, Waverly wasn’t aware. She slid away all at once, her entire body surrendering to the blessed call of slumber.

  


* * *

  


Waverly woke up shivering.

It was pitch dark, and it took her a slow moment to shake off confusion and remember where she was, and why. But mostly, she just couldn’t stand being cold.

“Huh-h-h,” she grunted out, her teeth chattering. “N-N-Nicole.”

Nicole didn’t wake, not entirely, but she did shift and roll toward Waverly, who took immediate advantage. She squirmed her fingers under the bottom edge of Nicole’s jacket, seeking the warm layer between fabric and skin.

“Your hands are like popsicles,” Nicole mumbled sleepily.

“Fire’s out,” Waverly whispered back. At least the thick walls were keeping the worst of the bitter cold out, and even though Waverly could hear the wind starting to pick up outside, it didn’t feel drafty. When Nicole began to move, like she was going to get up and fix the fire, Waverly grabbed on tighter. “Noooo, don’t go.”

“Okay,” said Nicole as she subsided without complaint. She was asleep again within seconds, and Waverly let herself drift as well, shamelessly stealing body heat that her girlfriend never seemed to mind sharing.

  


* * *

  


Morning light found Waverly spooning up against the elegant curve of Nicole’s back – they must have shifted around in the night – and she heard rumbled laughter, a sweet low chuckle. “Wake up.” Nicole was patting at her forearm, and Waverly realized she still had her hands stuffed into various places under Nicole’s clothing: one curled around her waist, the other jammed under the waistband of her trousers. “Wake up, Waverly. You gotta let me up. They’re trying to raise us on the radio.”

Grumbling, Waverly extracted herself, and Nicole slid out from under the blanket and stumbled the few steps over to the table where she’d left her handheld. She keyed it up. “Dispatch, this is ranger seven two four, can you repeat that last, over.”

The transmission came in garbled, which told Waverly that something (heavy snow, an atmospheric condition, _whatever_ ) was messing with the reception. “Seven t- -our, please upd- current status, over.”

Waverly snorted. _Tell ‘em we’re having a picnic in Tahiti._ Nicole rolled her eyes, obviously thinking along similar lines. Her voice remained professional, however, and her response mild. “No change in status,” she spoke into the radio. “Ranger Earp and I remain sheltered at Warming Hut #3. Waiting for transport out of the valley. Over.”

Waverly sat up, shaking out her hair and combing out rough tangles with her fingers. It was cold enough inside the cabin that she could see her breath, and what light was coming in the small windows was weak and flat. The whine of the wind was constant, no letup for the past few hours. _Oh no,_ she thought. _This won’t be good._

It was not good.

“Weather advisories issu- possib- whiteout conditions are -,” the dispatcher crackled. “- twenty-four hour postponement of rescue transport. Can you confirm. Over.”

Waverly sighed, as she listened to the back-and-forth between Nicole and the dispatcher, getting their communication right over the fragmented channel. Yes, they were in no immediate danger and could stay in the hut for another day. No, the bad weather was not likely to continue after today, forecast was calling for sunny & a little bit warmer starting next day. Confirmed, the next rescue attempt would be tomorrow, first thing in the morning.

Nicole signed off, and set the radio down with a glum look on her face. “Guess you heard all that,” she said, glancing over at Waverly.

“Yup. Stuck another day,” said Waverly, shrugging her shoulders. “If only I had my travel Scrabble set, we’d be golden.” She was gratified to see Nicole laugh. The storm had blown in early, they were half a day minimum by snowmobile from any of the frequently travelled areas of the park, and that was that. The most important thing for them right now was morale, and they both knew it. Being essentially trapped in fairly hostile conditions, even for a finite amount of time, meant that a good attitude and a sharp mind would be key to getting through their ordeal safely.

Nicole began to focus, as well, on the tasks at hand. She looked around the confines of the cabin, and said, “Yeah. Okay. You want me to restart the fire?”

“Sure,” said Waverly, reaching for her boots and starting to lace them up. “I’ll bring some more wood in for you, I want to see how much is left in the stack. And do we have a container, something we can use to melt snow?”

Nicole went to her daypack that she’d set near the table, and came up with a metal cup. “This is about the best I can do,” she said. “Better than nothing.”

Waverly nodded as Nicole handed her the cup. “No, this is great.” She figured that with it, she could collect enough clean snow to melt by the fire to give them at least a little drinking water. She wouldn’t be able to browse for any plants to make tea, probably, but that couldn’t be helped. She finished getting dressed and tucked the cup into the large cargo pocket of her heavy jacket. “Be right back,” she said, and she stepped out the door.

She was immediately slapped by the stiff wind, blowing straight down the mountain, picking up the grainy, powdery ice particles and flinging them with alaming velocity. Visibility was practically nil. _Jeez,_ Waverly thought, _they weren’t kidding about the whiteout._ A mountain blizzard like this could last all day, and made any travel hazardous in the extreme, too easy to get lost or go over a cliff, no matter if you were walking, skiing, or on a snowmobile. She turned to what was left of the woodpile, still neatly stacked between the door and the cabin’s corner, down to only a few armfuls now. She picked up a few pieces and made a hasty retreat back inside, setting them down next to Nicole who had gotten kindling lit in the banked embers of yesterday’s fire.

“Thanks, babe,” said Nicole, looking up. “How much is left out there?”

“Def not enough,” answered Waverly. By the best of her estimation, even if they kept the fire burning as low as they could, the fuel would run out before nightfall. Maybe they should let the fire die out for the daytime? “And the wind is pretty fierce out there. What do you want to do?”

Nicole looked thoughtful. “Shouldn’t be too hard to collect some downed wood from the trees behind here,” she said. “I think that’d get us enough to last through the night.”

Waverly had her doubts, wondering how dry any found fuel would be, but she also knew that without heat, without fire, their situation could easily tip into danger. “Okay,” she said after a long pause. “Should we go do it now?”

“I’ll do it,” said Nicole firmly. “No use in both of us going out. You stay here and monitor the radio.” She rummaged through her daypack again, coming up with a single small hatchet. Waverly wanted to argue, but Nicole had her own stubborn streak, and it looked like she’d made her decision. Waverly reluctantly agreed to stay and tend the cabin.

  


* * *

  


Waverly really, really regretted not looking at her watch earlier.

Nicole had waited around a little, to see if the wind would let up any, before setting out on her wood-collection mission.

“The visibility is really balls out there,” Waverly said as Nicole made ready to leave. “Be careful.”

“I will,” said Nicole, giving Waverly a light kiss. “I’ll be fine, sweetie.”

Waverly had watched her trudge away into the swirling whiteness through the thick glass windows. _Well, then._ She turned to the inside of the cabin, and began neatening the room even though it barely took any time at all, since it mostly consisted of refolding the blankets and setting them in a tidy stack. She ventured outside one time, braving the piercing chill to pack Nicole’s steel cup full of good, clean snow, setting it near the waning fire so it could start to melt. After that, there was nothing else to do, so Waverly settled in to wait.

And wait.

_And wait._

Waverly didn’t know exactly how long Nicole had been gone, but it _felt_ like she should be back by now. She tried to picture in her mind’s eye how far away the closest trees to the cabin were. She’d seen them yesterday but had she really _seen_ them? It was just a few steps away, right? And how long would it take to gather enough wood? And how much was needed to be _enough?_

She stood, sat down again, stood up again, paced the small rectangle of the cabin, finally sat and forced herself not to fidget. Another fifteen minutes passed, Waverly watching the hands of her wristwatch like a hawk now, her mind growing more and more unsettled. _Where was Nicole?_ Did she have to go farther than expected before she found an acceptable stand of trees? Did a branch fall and injure her? Was she floundering in deep snow? Did she lose her way in the whiteout? _Oh god, that was it, wasn’t it?_ Nicole had walked far enough away that she could no longer see the cabin, and she was alone out there and couldn’t find her way back.

Waverly could feel herself starting to grow frantic, her worry well-entrenched now, even as she admonished herself not to panic, to stay calm. There was no one else; she alone was going to be the one to get Nicole out of any trouble. _I need to signal her,_ she thought. _But how?_ A flare gun or even a strobe flashlight would be useless in this whiteout, visual signals were out. And Waverly knew shouting would be equally useless, anybody’s voice would be swallowed up in the flying snow. She thought longingly of the signal whistle and mirror combo that she kept tucked into a corner of her pack, part of her ‘just in case’ emergency stash, but the pack had been swept away along with the snowmobile, gone for good. Waverly started scanning the cabin for something that could be used to make noise when her eyes fell on Nicole’s backpack.

_Oh. I bet there’s a whistle somewhere in there!_

Waverly pulled the pack closer, lumpy with oddly-shaped objects strapped to the outside and crammed full of gear, and blessed Nicole’s penchant for carrying a lot of stuff around. She hesitated for a moment, pondering her best move. Rifling through Nicole’s things felt sort of like an invasion of privacy, like going through someone’s purse without permission. She weighed the violation against her need. _Yikes. Think. What should I do?_ It wasn’t like she was trying to snoop or anything, she was looking for resources to get out of a jam, and she would apologize to Nicole later when she explained what she had done. Yeah. That would work. She determined to search through as little of the pack as possible, guessing that Nicole would probably carry it in one of the top accessory pockets. With a hopeful little sigh, she unzipped the zipper closest to her.

 _Eee!_ There it was. Waverly felt a completely outsized rush of pride and satisfaction, seeing that she’d guessed right, finding her prize on the first try. She pulled out the whistle, bright orange and made of high-impact plastic, and strung it around her neck by the sturdy lanyard. Thus armed, she zipped the lucky compartment closed again and returned Nicole’s pack to its spot at the wall.

Now, she had to go back outside.

Waverly flipped up the hood of her parka and snugged down the drawstrings, and tugged up the cuffs of her gloves, before she opened the door and stepped out of the cabin. The cold wind hadn’t changed, it still felt like an angry swarm of wasps hurtling straight off the north pole, bent on stinging every exposed bit of skin, but Waverly was braced for it this time, and gritted her teeth in her determination to endure. She scanned the snow to see if she could make out any tracks, to indicate which way Nicole had gone. _There._ Bootprints still dented the smooth white surface, leading to the right and away into the invisible landscape, and the tracks were filling up with blown powder, just as Waverly had feared. She followed the prints for a few dozen steps, as far as she dared before she, too, might lose touch with the cabin. Then, she stopped, listened carefully but heard nothing but the constant whine of the wind. _C’mon, please,_ she thought. _I hope this works._

She brought the whistle to her lips, and blew three sharp blasts. _Thrrr. Thrrr. Thrrrr._

The shriek of it was loud to her own ears, and Waverly desperately hoped it would carry. She waited half a minute, heard no reply. She raised the whistle again, blew three more times. This time, she followed with a probably-useless, almost involuntary shout. “NICOLE!”

Like a miracle, a faint shout came echoing back, almost eaten up by the wind. _“Waverly!”_

“Nicole! Over here!” Waverly shouted, then chastised herself: _use the whistle, dumbass._ She blew it again, three more times, and listened.

She heard Nicole’s faint shouted voice once more. _“Keep doing that.”_

 _Oh, thank god._ Waverly fell into a pattern of three short whistles, count to twenty, whistle again. She continually scanned the flat snowy landscape, and after a few minutes, Nicole came staggering out of the whiteout, dragging three, no, _four_ hefty branches behind her. Waverly thought she might drop to her knees, the way relief suddenly flooded her.

Nicole was laughing when she was finally close enough to talk, a low chuckle. “I’m glad you started doing that,” she said. “Those tracks were getting hard to follow.”

“I’m mad at you!” Waverly shot back, her anger sudden as a cloudburst. “I was worried you’d gotten lost and you’d _totally_ gotten lost!”

“Not _lost_ -lost. I could have found the way back,” Nicole said with confidence. “But I appreciate the assistance, you made it much easier.” She grinned, the gorgeous cocky smile Waverly loved, dimple popping, visible even under the ruff of her parka. Waverly relented.

“Alright. Let’s get this inside.”

  


* * *

  


Waverly was nothing if not impressed by the amount of wood Nicole had managed to haul back to the shelter. She hadn’t been sure it would even be possible, but Nicole had located and dragged out enough fuel, like some kind of tall, red-headed crazed Paul Bunyan/pack mule hybrid, that Waverly had no more worries about keeping the fire burning. “Wow,” she murmured, more to herself than anything. “I guess I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

Nicole’s sharp ears caught it nevertheless. “You doubted me?” she queried, one eyebrow popping.

“Nuh-uh. Never.” Waverly leaned in to give Nicole a kiss on the cheek, then kicked at the twigs that were catching at her ankle. They had dragged everything up to the cabin’s small porch; now they just needed to chop it up.

Still grinning, Nicole handed Waverly the hatchet, went inside and came back out thirty seconds later with a coiled-up pocket saw. Together, they worked steadily to break down the wood, starting with turning the large, unwieldy pieces into manageable sizes that they could carry inside the cabin. It was demanding work, and they rested frequently so as not to get overheated. It would be far too easy to start sweating under their layers of clothing, and that was dangerous – wind chill way below freezing, soaked base layers and no dry clothes to change into was a sure way to get chilled or even hypothermic.

Once that task was accomplished, they dragged it all into the shelter, then spent a good part of the afternoon taking turns sawing and breaking the wood into small, burnable-sized pieces. Nicole neatly stacked the logs in the hut’s far corner as they were made, and Waverly fashioned a rough broom out of some discarded branches, so she could sweep the sawdust into the hearth.

The radio crackled to life at one point. “Ranger four five nine, this is six two two, come in, over.” It was Marie.

Waverly eagerly picked up her radio, anticipating news. “Six two two, go ahead, over.”

“Since you’re still at #3 you probably haven’t heard yet. Just wanted to tell you Aggie came out of surgery a couple of hours ago and is doing great,” Marie said. Her voice was distorted by whatever radio interference was still going on, but understandable enough. “Doctor said he’ll make a full recovery but he’ll be in a cast for a few weeks. Thought you’d like to know.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate it,” said Waverly. They signed off not long after that. Nicole looked up from where she was plying the hatchet, a warm smile on her face. Waverly let out a long sigh, her shoulders dropping as she let out tension she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “That’s a relief,” she said.

“Yeah,” Nicole replied. “Big time. I mean I wish I’d met him under better circumstances but glad to hear he’ll be okay.” She shook her head, amused. “Aggie, that’s kind of a funny name. Is he from Texas?”

Waverly crinkled her brow. “What?” What on earth was Nicole talking about? _Texas?_ The non sequitur rattled around in her brain, found no home.

“You know,” said Nicole, spreading her hands open in a futile gesture, beseeching understanding. “Texas? Texas Aggies? Gig ‘em Aggies?” As Waverly continued to look puzzled, Nicole dropped her chin and resumed her work. “Oh _kaaay._ Guessing it’s not a college thing, then.”

“Hmmph. No Texas that I know of,” Waverly huffed, giving up the attempt to make a connection to whatever Nicole was trying to explain. “Aggie is short for Agamemnon. He once told me his mother loved ancient Greek literature, so that’s how he got the name. He also told me I’m the only person who has guessed it on the first try.”

“Sounds about right,” Nicole murmured, with an infuriatingly charming smirk.

“Hey, don’t be such a smarty pants,” Waverly retorted. She held out her hand, imperious, for the hatchet. “Give me that, you’re doing all the work. Let me take a turn.” Nicole pretended to hesitate for a moment before easily relinquishing her seat, and the hand tool, over to Waverly.

The pile of wood to be broken up got smaller and smaller, until at last, the main portion was all chopped up and put aside. Nicole flopped into one of the chairs. “Whew!” she sighed. “I think that’ll be more than enough.”

“What about this one?” Waverly toed at the last remaining bit, different from the rest that Nicole had managed to haul back. While those had been some sort of pinewood, large downed pieces that were mostly bare of needles, this one was white fir, and Nicole had chosen a branch that was still fluffy and green. The idea dawned on Waverly. _That’s why she was out there for so long – she was_ harvesting _these pieces. On purpose. So why did she pick this one?_

“Well,” Nicole shrugged. “I know you were cold last night, so I figured we could use it for the sleeping platform. Should help.”

Waverly laughed, affection bubbling in her chest. _Leave it to Nicole._ Even though they were stuck in a primitive shelter, pinned by a blizzard in the backcountry, she was going to make sure that Waverly was _comfortable._

  


* * *

  


The fireplace crackled merrily, and Waverly was _super_ happy about being warm. Well, warm-ish. Warmer? Not shivering. With a surplus of firewood, they had stacked the logs high in the hearth and finally, _finally,_ the hut was no longer freezing cold. The bad news was they had nothing to eat, after Waverly had shared a couple of cinnamon candies she’d found in her pocket. It was a problem that had no solution at the moment, so she tried to ignore her hunger, to put it out of her mind. When the winter sun had slipped behind the peaks and the temps dropped, they had decided to go to bed even though it was still early. It wasn’t a bad idea, Waverly thought, since she knew if they’d stayed up talking, she wouldn’t be able to think about anything besides how starved she was, and how disgruntled the lack of food was making her. Instead, she could be hungry and distracted by the closeness of Nicole’s body, which was the superior choice, obvi.

“This feels good,” Waverly said, wiggling closer to Nicole, enjoying the give of their new bedding. They had strewn the sleeping platform with small, flat branches plucked from the fir, and in addition to providing insulation, it was so much softer than sleeping on just wooden slats and an old blanket. A verdant, resinous scent still clung to the wood and wafted out whenever Waverly shifted and turned in the bed, not overwhelming, it was actually very pleasant, all things considered. Waverly managed a small contented sigh.

“You feel good,” Nicole hummed in reply, her hands wandering leisurely over Waverly’s hips. She pressed her nose into the side of Waverly’s face, next to her ear, and Waverly turned toward her. Their lips met, and the kiss was sweet and gentle, at first. It became delightfully exploratory as Nicole rolled over on her back and Waverly shifted her entire body to halfway drape over her, Waverly’s palms cradled against the line of Nicole’s jaw, both feeling easy and relaxed. Waverly thrilled at the hitch of Nicole’s breath, and the tender slide of her tongue against her lips, and the teasing grin Waverly could feel was playing across Nicole’s face.

That is, until a startlingly loud growl came from Nicole’s stomach, proclaiming that she must be desperately hungry as well. Nicole dropped her head, looking somewhat mortified, as Waverly stifled her guffaw.

“Traitor!” Nicole muttered in the direction of her midsection. “Sorry,” she added, to Waverly.

“It’s okay, baby,” said Waverly. “I keep thinking about what I am going to make you for breakfast when we get back.” She giggled, and smoothed a hand over her lover’s rumbling belly.

“Mmm. I really like that vegan scramble you make,” Nicole added hopefully. Then she frowned. “But yeah. Sorry if I ruined the mood.”

“Don’t worry. I feel way too gritty and grimy to do much of, well, you know,” Waverly said, with a crooked half-grin and a lifted eyebrow. When Nicole started to draw away, Waverly caught her hands and brought them back to her body, saying, “No, don’t stop what you were doing. I was liking that.”

“Cuddling all night it is, then,” said Nicole. Waverly could see the slow, satisfied smile that came drifting across her face, in the dancing light of the fire.

  


* * *

  


They were both up with the dawn, Nicole mending the fire and Waverly heating up a little water for them to share in lieu of tea or coffee, before trying to raise whoever was coordinating the rescue effort. So far, the day was chilly but the skies were clear, and the terrible wind had dissipated completely. Waverly went outside with Nicole, and they stood together admiring the morning and the crisp air, the world brightly blanketed in its pristine snowy cloak and the long, empty valley stretched out below them, before Nicole turned back to business. The on-duty dispatcher was ready for her, apparently. “Seven two four, switch to channel sixteen, over.”

Nicole adjusted the radio’s settings, switching over to the ranger-direct channel, and her boss, Nedley, picked up the transmission.

“Got some bad news for you, Haught,” he grumbled, once they’d established the line. “The last snowmobile ripped a track when we started up this morning. We’re sending for the replacement part just as quick as we can get one, but it’ll be midday at the earliest. We’ll get you out but it’ll be late today.”

“Copy that,” Nicole replied. “What happened to the old Polaris?”

“Engine’s in pieces on the shop floor,” gruffed Nedley. Nicole looked over at Waverly and mouthed, _fuck._ Waverly’s heart sank a little. She knew that the park’s tiny fleet of snowmobiles mostly operated on crossed fingers and a shoestring budget; losing one of the machines to the avalanche was going to hurt.

“And the sled that Marie and I were using?”

“She left it at the trailhead so she could ride the bus with Aggie,” answered Nedley. “Road’s closed since the storm yesterday, haven’t gotten a plow up there yet, so it's still there. We were gonna retrieve it as part of getting you out.”

“Stand by,” said Nicole. She set the radio aside and turned to Waverly. “Listen, I don’t want to wait around for them to finally get their butts up here, let’s walk out while the weather is clear.”

“I’m willing,” said Waverly, “but it’s going to be a beast busting through all the drifts.”

“Yeah. But I’ve got something for that,” grinned Nicole.

  


* * *

  


It felt good to be moving, Waverly had to admit. Pretty much anything beat lollygagging around in that tiny cabin waiting for the cavalry to show up. She’d rather rescue herself, thank you very much. And of course, gearhead Nicole had managed to pull some magic out of her backpack, yet again.

Waverly looked down at her boots, and the thick straps that held the lightweight aluminum and webbing lashed to them. “I still can’t believe you had _snowshoes_ hiding in there,” she laughed, shaking her head in warm bemusement.

“You are never allowed to tease me again about the stuff I carry,” Nicole solemnly intoned.

Of course, Nicole was only carrying one pair, which had led to a small argument about who should wear them. Nicole prevailed, saying that as a novice Waverly should use the good set of ‘shoes with the easier learning curve, even as she fashioned a set for herself out of the remains of the firewood and some of the long, flexible branches of the fir that had served as their bedding. Waverly watched, fascinated, as Nicole’s agile fingers wove the materials together, and deftly tied them off with lengths of stripped bark. The homemade snowshoes looked rough as hell, but they would do the job: by increasing the size of their footprints, they could both walk on top of the snow instead of sinking in.

Nicole set her handiwork aside, and motioned Waverly closer. “Let’s get these adjusted for you,” she said, pulling the snowshoes off from where they’d been lashed to the outside of her pack. Waverly realized she’d been looking at the long, narrow shape the whole time, without recognition. _Well. Whaddaya know._ Then, when Nicole unzipped the plain black nylon bag and pulled the ‘shoes free, a ziplock baggie came fluttering out as well, plunking unceremoniously to the ground. Waverly gasped. “Is that … ?”

Nicole was staring wide-eyed, too, slow delight spreading across her face. “I’d totally forgotten about those,” she breathed.

Waverly stooped down and picked up the baggie, the yellow-and-green logo of the ordinary grocery-store granola bars obvious. Peanut Butter Crunch. Waverly flipped the bag over, seeing two wrappers. One was empty, clearly trash that had been squirrelled away for later disposal. The other was untouched. “Oh my god. There’s a whole one in here.”

“Stale as hell, I bet,” Nicole said, her face scrunching slightly. “I think that’s from a year ago?” When Waverly tried to hand it over to her, she refused, and said, “That’s okay, baby. You can eat it. Sorry there’s only one.”

“Nicole Haught,” Waverly said firmly. “If you think we’re not splitting this, you are all kinds of wrong.” They grinned at each other, then Nicole nodded her go-ahead. It was delightful, it truly was, to pull the bar out of the baggie, to open it super carefully so as to spill no crumbs, to share out the two halves between them. Waverly found her mouth watering in anticipation of eating something, _anything,_ and she paused a moment as she brought the first bite to her lips. That stale old granola bar hit like manna from heaven, the taste and texture of it washing over her in something like plain joy. It wasn’t much, of course, as far as sustenance went, just a handful of calories. But the mental boost it gave her, well, that was ginormous. Waverly felt charged up, and all the more eager to face the day.

  


* * *

  


Once ready, they had set off, still early in the morning. It didn’t take Waverly long at all to get the hang of using the new equipment. A slight bend in the knee, and maybe a tiny bit bowlegged so you didn’t whap yourself in the ankle with the frame of the snowshoe, but otherwise it was pretty close to regular hiking. She found that an exaggerated arm-swing seemed to help her balance.

Gaining confidence, she turned to Nicole, who was following behind her. “It’s not that hard! It’s sort of like cross-country skis, I think.”

Nicole answered with the big, dimpled grin. “You’re looking great, baby.”

Now that she wasn’t sinking knee- or waist-deep in drifts at every step, Waverly knew they could make good time to where the last operational snowmobile had been left. Maybe a half-day’s walk? It might be better to travel more slowly, since they were both pretty low-energy with the general lack of food. She could imagine she could still taste that last bite of the granola bar, a little crispy-sweet as she’d savored the crunch of it between her teeth. She laughed at herself for enjoying what was probably a mild hallucination.

Still, it was one of those pretty winter days in the mountains, with the cold crisp air and a sky so blue it would pierce your eye, and Waverly felt nothing but good spirits. She hummed as she trudged along, warm enough as long as she kept moving.

Once they reached the lake, Waverly looked for any signs of where Marie and Aggie had crossed: chewed-up ice, rutted snowpiles. She didn’t see anything, so she chose the least-sloped section of the embankment to walk out onto the ice. Nicole followed, picking her way carefully through the last remaining frozen reeds so she wouldn’t snag her awkward footwear. Waverly listened as she walked out, alert for any warning cracks or creaks, but the ice was frozen many feet thick, and swept clean of snow by the prevailing wind. Might be a little slippy for traversing, especially for Nicole, who didn’t have the advantage of metal crampons or spikes for traction on her homemade equipment. Still, crossing the lake would save them miles over walking around, and was the obvious way to go. Waverly looked back, considering. “Are you going to be okay here?”

“I’ll be fine,” Nicole smiled. “It’s not as bad as it looks.” She lifted her chin, gesturing to the lake’s far side. “Once we get over there, it’s not that far, right?”

“Yeah. Only about a mile, mile and a half more to the road,” confirmed Waverly. She continued on, keeping her pace deliberate so Nicole would have no problem keeping up on the grey, glassy surface.

Once across the lake, the terrain wasn’t difficult, mostly open and with a gentle slope. Just walking through endlessly white landscape, and even though Waverly usually liked all the seasons just fine, she grumpily thought she would gladly trade it for the green of spring right about now. _Keep going,_ she chanted to herself, pretending that hunger wasn’t gnawing at her belly. _Everything will be fine. Nothing to do but keep going._ At last they approached Norris Notch, and the end of their walk. The location of the unplowed road, with several feet of snow piled up against guardrails, was clearly visible, but Waverly couldn’t see the snowmobile right away. It was sharp-eyed Nicole who spotted it, half buried in drifts, in the middle of what would be a small parking area in summertime. “There,” she said, pointing. “God, I hope I don’t have to hotwire it.”

Waverly’s eyes widened. “You know how to do that?”

Nicole laughed. “It’s not hard. I know how to fix it afterwards, too, so Nedley won’t yell at me.” They plodded up to the machine, and Nicole brushed the accumulated snow from the console with a gloved hand. “Hmm. No key.” She swept the seat clear as well, and popped the latch on the underseat storage, revealing that Marie had stashed the ignition key there. “Jackpot!” she yelped, as she gave a happy fist pump. “You wanna go home?”

Waverly smiled brightly, reflecting Nicole’s huge triumphant grin. “Yeah,” she said, bouncing a little in sheer joy. It had been a bit rough out there, but now they were sitting pretty. Winter had thrown a lot at her this week, avalanche and blizzard and cold and piles and piles of snow, but she and Nicole had managed to make it through. Nicole pulled a pair of goggles from the storage compartment and handed them to her, so she slipped them on, and tightened down the drawstrings on her parka’s hood, ready to ride. “Let’s go home, baby.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love these characters so much.
> 
> This all started when another WEarp fic author sent me a link about park rangers in the Yellowstone interior, cut off for weeks at a time due to weather and who must be self-sufficient. We had a good laugh at all the tropes we could fit into that narrative. Then, oh no, the idea took root and I wrote this. Thank you, [Orange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orange17), this is all your fault. I think I got all the tropes except sharing the last tin of food (since cans would not survive the freeze/thaw cycle of the deserted hut) so I turned it into a granola bar instead.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, please leave a comment or kudo if you did!
> 
> You can find me flailing about on Twitter: [@boo_in_la](http://twitter.com/boo_in_la)
> 
> _Support fanfiction! If you enjoy my work, you can buy me a coffee:[ko-fi.com/booinla](https://ko-fi.com/booinla)_


End file.
